This was published 1 year ago
‘Happiness arrived sometimes, but it had often ghosted me by morning’
Forget the big: true joy is often found in the small.
By Jessie Stephens
Credit: Simon Letch
The day started early, at about 20 past five. I fed. We pulled faces. Then it was time for another sleep. I listened to the rain pound against the roof, and accepted that today there would likely be no walk. No need, really, to leave the house. I drifted off, then woke an hour or so later with the babbling of my four-month-old. We fed. We pulled faces. And so the day continued. Like the 117 days that preceded it, today would be one of the best days of my life.
The first six months of 2023 were a collection of Big Moments. I was pregnant for the first time, due mid-year. I got married. We moved house. I delivered a manuscript. I worked harder than I ever have, fearing the irrelevance that would inevitably come when I birthed a baby.
I had strived for Big Moments. Collected them. As though life was a simple equation, where if you put enough Big Moments in, happiness spat out. But this year, the happiness was not being delivered as promised. A dose of perinatal depression surely wasn’t helping. For most of my pregnancy I felt profoundly numb – unable to touch the good or the bad. But if I’m honest, this equation I’d developed had been malfunctioning for a while. I’d achieved so much of what I set out to do. The happiness arrived sometimes, but it had often ghosted me by morning. How much harder could I work?
I was reminded of my failure at happiness every time I was asked a particular kind of question.
“You only have three months to go! You must be so excited.”
“You got married last week! Was it just the best day of your life?”
“You’ve delivered your manuscript! You must be so proud.”
Being sad was not new to me. Being sad in the context of obligatory happiness, however, was.
Beneath the sadness there was fear. I was absorbing all the warnings. When this baby came, I’d never sleep again. I’d be split in half, my work now built on borrowed time from my child. Internet forums spoke of maternal regret, women who didn’t enjoy being mothers. Most spoke of the postpartum period as the hardest time of their lives. To be clear, I am grateful for their honesty. I now know their words would have been tremendously helpful to those going through the same thing, a lifeline in what can be a lonely experience.
And then, almost exactly halfway through 2023, my baby was born.
The fog lifted. What came next was a series of small, quiet, private moments that brought with them more joy than I ever thought possible.
For me, this year the greater joys have been found in the flickers. The glimmers.
I read something recently that said big joys and small joys are the same. They are not felt in proportion. It is not how we are designed.
I had heard people describe the ecstasy in hearing a baby laugh for the first time, or watching them discover who you are. Still, those words on a page stir nothing in me. Similarly, a picture of my baby staring at her own hands is rather meaningless to anyone who does not love her. That is to say, it is a small joy that is in many ways incommunicable to others. It cannot be expressed in an Instagram post.
Big Moments, on the other hand, are the currency of our online world. Announce. Create. Earn. Strive. Improve. Climb. Achieve. Perform the achieving. Success looks like an answer to the questions, What next? And when?
We read retreating as a sign that something has gone wrong. Family life can’t be quantified. One does not win awards for it and certainly, there is no possibility of promotion. How often does a woman in particular qualify her current circumstances as “I’m just on maternity leave” or “I’m just at home with the kids”.
There’s a word for those joys that punctuate our everyday lives. They’re called glimmers. Of course, one does not need children to experience them. It is the ocean on a hot day. A dog sitting by your side. The way you can’t catch your breath because you’re laughing too hard. An enthusiastic “yes” from a friend who knows exactly what you mean.
Sometimes a firework, loud and obvious, can be a source of joy. But for me, this year more than ever, the greater joys have been found in the flickers. The glimmers. The pauses and the quiet. Fresh eyes seeing shadows for the first time. Legs kicking from uncontained excitement. The babbling of a baby who has decided they have something to say, they just don’t know how to yet.
And so the day that started at 20 past five rolled on. Nappies and feeding and play. And no one asked me if this was one of the happiest periods of my life. If they had, the answer would have been yes.
Jessie Stephens’ debut novel, Something Bad Is Going to Happen (Macmillan Australia, $35), was published in August.
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